Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to an electronic device having an integrated temperature sensor, and to a manufacturing method of the same. In particular, the one or more embodiments of present disclosure relates to a microfluidic-based electronic device having at least one integrated thermocouple and at least one microchannel.
Description of the Related Art
Devices for handling fluids, comprising at least one micro-channel in a substrate, e.g., a device of the “Lab-On-Chip” (LOC) type, can be used, inter alia, for analyzing or transporting very small quantities of liquids or to subject said fluids to biological or chemical reactions. Devices of this type may also be simple devices with a single duct, such as e.g., used for a flow sensor. Micro-channels in Lab-on-Chip and Point-of-Care (POC) systems specify flow control to be very accurate when delivering fluid to a processing center (e.g., an analyzer) or when retrieving fluid from a reservoir.
In fluid flow meters, one aim is to achieve optimal mass flow readings across a micromachined chip; to this end, it is highly desirable to have a uniform and laminar flow. In the known art, this is currently achieved at the packaging level.
The known art has a number of drawbacks. In particular, in thermal fluid flow meters, laminar flow conditions are not always optimally controlled at packaging level, thus dissipating a relatively high amount of heat into a turbulent flow (this makes the flow sensor less sensitive). A thermal sensor of this type, therefore, does not provide reliable results of the measured flow temperature.
Moreover, thermoelectric infrared (IR) sensors are known in the art to exploit thermocouples in order to reveal IR radiations. A thermocouple includes two different materials which are connected at one end, while the other two ends are attached to a voltage meter. If there is a temperature difference between the common junction and the thermocouple ends connected to the voltmeter, then a thermo-voltage is revealed. The magnitude of the thermo-voltage is a function of the temperature difference. If an IR radiation, coming from an external object, is collected at the thermocouple common junction, the thermocouple junction warms up in response to the incident IR radiation. In this way, it is possible to reveal the IR radiation by sensing the thermo-voltage generated by the thermocouple. However, cooling a thermocouple junction typically employs thermal dissipaters at packaging level which increase the final size of the package and does not provide for an optimal level of integration.